Comment on the recent Grokster judgment by the US Supreme Court

The Supreme Court handed down its decision in MGM v Groksteron 27 June 2005, reversing the decision of the lower courtsand holding that peer-to-peer software services may be heldliable for inducing copyright infringement.     

The influence of collective bargaining on large police agency salaries: 1990–2000

Collective bargaining between police management and unions is an important process that determines many aspects of police work, particularly the monetary benefits for line officers like salary and fringe benefits. Working with limited budgets, police administrators who engage in collective bargaining are obligated to negotiate with union representatives over wage benefits while attempting to maintain adequate financial resources toward other police operations. Though students of policing learn that police unions try very hard to increase economic reward for their members there is limited research on the effectiveness of their efforts. Since economic benefits are the primary focus of police unions, it is important; therefore, to evaluate the impact that collective bargaining has on salaries earned by police personnel. This study examines this issue by combining four waves of the Law Enforcement Management and Administration Statistics for the period 1990–2000. Pooled time series analyses reveal that large organizations that engaged in collective bargaining had higher minimum wages for officers during the period. As predicted, collective bargaining did not affect minimum chief’s salaries.     

CJDATS CO-OCCURRING DISORDERS SCREENING INSTRUMENT (CODSI) FOR MENTAL DISORDERS (MD): A Validation Study

Three standardized screening instruments-the Global Appraisal of Individual Needs Short Screener (GSS), the Mini-International Neuropsychiatric Interview-Modified (MINI-M), and the Mental Health Screening Form (MHSF)-were compared to two shorter instruments, the 6-item Co-Occurring Disorders Screening Instrument for Mental Disorders (CODSI-MD) and the 3-item CODSI for Severe Mental Disorders (CODSI-SMD) for use with offenders in prison substance-abuse treatment programs. Results showed that the CODSI screening instruments were comparable to the longer instruments in overall accuracy and that all of the instruments performed reasonably well. The CODSI instruments showed sufficient value to justify their use in prison substance-abuse treatment programs and to warrant validation testing in other criminal justice populations and settings.     

Consultative Leninism: China's new political framework

This paper puts forward the concept of consultative Leninism to describe the political system that has taken shape in China after the death of Deng Xiaoping. It argues that the Communist Party has made its essentially Leninist political machinery more resilient in confronting the huge social and political challenges that the current global financial crisis may unleash in China by incorporating consultative elements. Consultative Leninism has five defining characteristics: an obsessive focus upon staying in power; continuous governance reform designed to pre-empt public demands for democratization; sustained efforts to enhance the Party's capacity to elicit, respond to and direct changing public opinion; pragmatism in economic and financial management; and the promotion of nationalism in place of Communism.     

Working for Criminalization of Economic Offending: Contradictions for Critical Criminology?

While economic crime and itscontrol deserve the scrutiny of criticalcriminology, there are problems in being acritical economic crime criminologist. The conclusion that criminal law in this areabe strictly and consistently enforced seemsinconsistent with critical criminology'swarnings regarding the dangers ofcriminalization as a response to socialproblems. This article reports upon thisdilemma in the specific context of research ona recent Finnish initiative to combat economiccrime that resulted in the authors engaging inpolicy-debates to argue for even greatercriminalization of such crime. The articledescribes and reflects upon thispro-criminalization strategy. It provides anoverview of the research project and some ofthe dangers associated with the advocacy ofgreater criminalization that emerged from it,and which is raised more generally by criticalcriminologists. It concludes by justifyingwhy, in the particular context within whichthis project was conducted, the approachadopted towards conducting the research,disseminating findings, and advocatingcriminalization.